It’s been almost three years since I recorded something for the channel, so it would take something special to get me back in the studio. Beyond Words is a sweet and simple story of a child diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS). According to Apraxia Kids, “CAS is a motor speech disorder that makes it difficult for children to speak.” As it says in the book, “not being able to speak is not the same as having nothing to say.”
Congratulations to Sid Ryan Eilers and the entire Fancy Cat Ensemble are due: Sid has been awarded a Canada Council for the Arts Explore and Create Grant!Between this grant and the Ontario Arts Council Music Creation Project Grant awarded to our composer, Raphael Roter, we have garnered 40% of our Fancy Cat creation budget. We still have several grants in the works and some additional fundraising to go, but we are now on track for a development workshop in Spring/Summer 2025!
FANCY CAT by Lisa Pijuan-Nomura. Used with permission from the artist; copyright retained by the artist.
FANCY CAT was inspired by this fantastic collage created by Lisa Pijuan-Nomura. If you love it like we do, it’s available for purchase at Lisa’s website! www.studiobeulah.com
Fancy Cat the collage is a grayscale cat with a human arm wearing bracelets, a ring, and a glorious butter yellow skirt. Sid looked at this cat and asked, “Who are you? What is your story? How did you get here? And why are you in a dress?” Sid brought these questions to Amber with even more queries: “Who was Fancy Cat as a child? What if their story was informed by our stories?” Lisa Pijuan-Nomura’s cat in a fancy skirt brought to mind images of Billy Porter in that beautiful tuxedo dress and we wondered: “When we see other adults making choices boldly outside of what’s ‘normal,’ why don’t we have the bravery to make our own bold choices? When did we lose the sense of our own internal compass: that different way of questioning and being in the world? How do we heal?” We looked to our childhoods.
The comments section of this post (we do not recommend reading the vitriol) is case in point why Billy Porter – and Sesame Street’s love for him – are dangerous to the status quo.
Fancy is a Sid/Amber mash-up: a dancer, a questioner, and a big feeler. They hurt when others are in pain and rejoice when others find joy. They are frequently told they are “too much.”
This is kid-Sid, who grew up receiving messages that they were physically “too much.” Three-year-old Sid is standing on the edge of a sandbox in front of a brown brick house. They have pale blond hair and are wearing white shorts without a shirt. Young Sid has a wide grin and is throwing their hands up in the air.
SID RYAN EILERS: As a child, I remember being wild and rambunctious. Memories of being very physical, jumping on the furniture and being so engrossed in the play then totally shocked out of it when I was yelled at, grabbed and hit because I was misbehaving. When I was four years old my mother became incredibly ill and needed to stay in the hospital. My father explained that I would be sent to live with another family and then made me promise to be “A good girl” – a profound sense that I was being given away because there was something wrong with who I was. I dreamed of being able to be a boy and I dreamed of being a powerful woman. I wanted to play sports and be an astronaut. But in the end I was drawn to Ballet. The physical, the expression wrapped up in being a perfect little “girl.”
This is kid-Amber, who grew up receiving messages that she was emotionally “too much.” Seven-year-old Amber, a white girl with brown hair, is blowing bubble gum and looking straight into the camera, an exhausted look in her eyes. She wears red earrings, red and white ribbons in her hair, a red tank top with blue trim, and carries a dingy tote bag.
AMBER WOOD: The messages I received as a child were generally variations on a theme: “Stop feeling such big feelings. We need you to be a good girl and just smile.” I learned that my inward emotional signals were wrong and I needed to be “happy” so that everyone around me would be okay. To perfectly maintain the facade, I hid my feelings to the point that I began denying them even when alone. When I began experiencing depressive and anxious episodes, I simply didn’t have the emotional language for what was happening to me. It took me a long time to name my feelings and learn to play again. So, when Sid said “we should write a play about being told we were too much as kids,” my answer was a resounding “yes!”
From the beginning, it was clear that our Fancy is not a cat. Fancy is a child. A human child. A transgender child in glorious butter yellow culottes.
SID: When I was in my twenties I saw the movie “Boys Don’t Cry,” and during the movie felt so connected to the character played by Hilary Swank – but then the movie turned incredibly violent and this character was murdered. I thought then that it was a cautionary tale and that whatever desire I had to be masculine or boyish was in fact wrong and deserving of death. Oliver Whitney said, “Ultimately, Boys Don’t Cry isn’t a film about what it’s like to live as a trans person, but about what it’s like to die for being one” (Boys Don’t Cry and Hollywood’s Ongoing Obsession With Trans Suffering). The impact of this film was that I was in the closet for another 20 years. Along the way I can now see so many bread crumbs leading me home to myself.
AMBER: While much of the art out there featuring trans and other 2SLGBTQIA+ folks features either negative representation or outcomes, the answer is not to remove us from narratives. Saundra Mitchell (Editor of the YA story collection All Out) wrote: “Removing us from books, movies, websites, textbooks, documentaries—removing us from schools and libraries—will not erase us. It will only mean that your children, the children of your community, your families, your flesh, who have been so fearsomely, wonderfully made—will suffer the way we did in decades past. They will fight, and many will lose, the battle against depression and suicide—not because we’re born mentally ill, but because we’re made that way by a world that hates us, openly.” (Saundra Mitchell, “Statement on the Challenges Against All Out, Out Now, Out There,” Making Stuff Up for a Living, October 28, 2022 https://saundramitchell.com/challenge-statements/). There was never any question for either of us about our Fancy being trans. Fancy just IS and has been from their inception. I am humbled to be invited into Sid’s story, as well as to write for the many trans kids out there seeking positive representation of themselves in media and art. They deserve to see themselves growing up with dignity and joy.
SID: I do not have an answer and there truly is nothing that can make how trans people have been treated okay. There is only what is ahead of us. I think we all have the capacity to reconsider how we actively enforce the gender binary and take steps towards a more open, more accepting, more celebratory way of being.
AMBER: Sid and I wanted to create a world where trans kids don’t just grow up but grow up beingcelebrated. A world where the violence and hate in our current reality do not have the final say. A world where healing of childhood wounds is imaginable. A generative world rather than an apocalyptic one.
We believe this world we’ve envisioned is possible. We need it to be. Fancy Cat is one of the ways in which we are living into that reality.
Love, Sid & Amber
If you or someone you love has thoughts about hurting themselves, take it seriously and seek help immediately. Stigma does not save lives.
A study in 2018 revealed that 27% of children’s books featured animals as their main characters (for reference, that was more than all BIPOC characters combined). While the situation has improved somewhat, we are still in roughly the same place. Find more information on choosing socially conscious children’s literature and an infographic from David Huyck and Sarah Park Dahlen showing this lack of character diversity at https://lightbulbheart.org/storytime/choosing-books/
In both the US and Canada, there is a growing body of legislation being introduced (and passed in the US) that limits and/or bans access to best practice healthcare for trans youth, such as hormones and puberty blockers, that is not denied to their cisgender peers. We believe all trans people are beautiful and valid, regardless of medically affirming care, but we also stand with those who seek it. Please see Movement Advancement Project’s “Equality Maps: Bans on Best Practice Medical Care for Transgender Youth” at https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/healthcare/youth_medical_care_bans for more information on current US legislation.
A note from Sid: Another thread to my identity is being diagnosed with PCOS in my early 20’s. I wanted to have a baby but knew never having had a regular menstrual cycle could make it really hard. I went to a fertility clinic and was told I had too many male hormones. I was put on estrogen and progesterone among many other hormones. I am so grateful to have had my kiddo but it wasn’t until later really owning honestly how I have never felt truly feminine except for that time period of attempting to become pregnant and taking estrogen and progesterone. There are many more articles now on PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome exploring perhaps if this is truly not “something wrong” but truly just another expression of the human body. Check out this article.
I’m a huge fan of these titles coming to bookshelves in Spring of 2023 from Penguin Random House Canada and Tundra Books! I highly recommend them all.
Title: Banana Author: Zoey Abbott
Zoey Abbott’s hilarious and heartwarming tale of a child whose father becomes obsessed with a banana and shirks all of his previously beloved fatherly behaviors is sure to please. A stand-in for technology (or a relationship with anything that gets in the way of father-child interactions), the banana slowly takes over the father’s attention until the child has no choice but to get rid of it with the funniest of means and reclaim her father’s affections. Coming March 2023!
Title: The Care and Keeping of Grandmas Author: Jennifer Mook-Sang Illustrator: Yong Ling Kang
Jennifer Mook-Sang and illustrator Yong Ling Sang have created a stunning picture book about caring for grandmas as they experience change. With language usually reserved for plants, our protagonist tells about how they cared for their grandma when she came to live with their family. The story and illustrations are charming and unexpected in the best of ways. Coming April 2023!
Title: What Does Little Crocodile Say at the Beach? Author: Eva Montanari
Who needs all of the Little Crocodile books? We all do! Sure thrill, this latest Eva Montanari tale (What Does Little Crocodile Say and What Does Little Crocodile Say at the Park) takes Little Crocodile to the beach and camping. It’s full of delightful read-aloud noises and sounds and engaging illustrations. This storylady laughed right out loud when she discovered what Little Crocodile finally says at the beach! Coming March 2023.
Title: The Song That Called Them Home Author: David A. Robertson Illustrator: Maya McKibbin
Another stunning example of David A. Robertson’s powerful storytelling and yet another reason to own everything he writes. With engaging illustrations from Maya McKibbin, this intriguing and compelling tale pulls the reader into the world of two grandchildren who find themselves lost and at the mercy of the Memekwesewak (“little people”) after their Moshom falls asleep at the water’s edge. Will they be forever lost in the music of the Memekwesewak or will their Grandfather call them home with a more alluring song? Coming April 2023 from Penguin Random House Canada/Tundra straight to your local storylady’s bookshelf.
Lightbulb Heart 